Balkan eSIM Provider Comparison 2026: POVNOMAD vs Airalo vs Holafly

Last updated on 20 September 2026

No EU roaming applies to the Balkans. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo all sit outside “roam like at home,” and your German home data allowance doesn’t count there. Since January 1, 2026, there’s been a voluntary price cap of €14 per gigabyte — but it only kicks in if you actively book the right tariff. If you don’t book anything, o2 charges its standard World Zone 3 price of €0.99 per megabyte, roughly €1,014 for a gigabyte.

The Comparison at a Glance

Unlimited plans for seven days, each at the tier with 3 GB of high-speed data per day, where available:

All prices as of September 5, 2026, collected on povnomad.com, airalo.com (EUR view from Germany) and esim.holafly.com (USD). Holafly prices are dollar prices and haven’t been converted — Holafly’s German site sometimes shows different euro amounts, so check them directly on esim.holafly.com/de. “—” means: the provider shows no list price for this term. The tiers are only partially comparable: POVNOMAD Unlimited XL and Airalo Unlimited both deliver 3 GB of high-speed data per day, POVNOMAD Unlimited Smart 1 GB and Unlimited L 2 GB. Prices are subject to change.

Two things stand out. For Montenegro and Serbia, the same allowance — 3 GB of high-speed data per day over a week — costs €16.90 and €19.90 respectively at POVNOMAD, versus €30.00 at Airalo for either. For North Macedonia, though, Airalo comes out ahead with €24.50 for 3 GB a day, versus POVNOMAD’s Unlimited L tariff, which delivers only 2 GB a day for €24.90. If you upload a lot there, you’re better off with Airalo.

What the EU-Western Balkans Agreement Actually Covers

This is where a lot of guides get it wrong. There are two separate arrangements, and neither of them is EU roaming.

First, the regional agreement among the six Western Balkan states themselves, signed in Belgrade in 2019 and in force since July 1, 2021. It creates “roam like at home” between Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. A local SIM from Belgrade works without surcharge in Sarajevo — but not in Germany. That’s the exact mirror image of the EU rule, and a common point of confusion.

Second, the declaration from the EU-Western Balkans summit in Tirana on December 6, 2022. Around 38 mobile operators voluntarily committed to lowering data prices between the EU and the Western Balkans: €18 per gigabyte from October 2023, €14 since January 1, 2026, and €9 from January 1, 2028.

The wording is narrow. What’s required is that the price per gigabyte falls below the cap in at least one product that each signatory offers to the broadest group of consumers — so one tariff, not all of them. Deutsche Telekom is a confirmed signatory. We couldn’t verify a signature from Vodafone Group or Telefónica.

On June 4, 2026, the Council of the EU authorized the Commission to negotiate with all six Western Balkan states on extending “roam like at home.” No date has been set for it to take effect. For comparison: for Ukraine and Moldova, around 18 months passed between the mandate and entry into force. For the Balkans, that puts it at 2027 or 2028 at the earliest. Until then: none of these countries have EU roaming.

Georgia falls outside both arrangements. It’s not part of the Western Balkans and isn’t included in the EU roaming zone. There’s no price cap there at all. Georgia is thus the most expensive of the seven countries when it comes to roaming.

What Your German Contract Costs

Deutsche Telekom places all seven countries in country group 2. Without a booked data pass, no data use is possible there at all — that protects you from a surprise bill, but leaves you without a network. Travel & Surf starts at €5.95 for 1 GB over two days, with €15.95 for 14 days. Since February 4, 2026, MagentaMobil plans also include an annual roaming allowance for country groups 2 and 3: 2 GB on XS, 4 GB on S, 10 GB on M, 25 GB on L and 50 GB on XL. If you have a large MagentaMobil plan and travel rarely, you may not need anything extra for a week in Montenegro.

Vodafone covers all seven countries with WorldTravel: €4.99 a month for 2 GB, with a twelve-month minimum term, then throttled to 5 kbit/s. The World Travel Pack costs €9.99 for 500 MB a day or €34.99 for 4 GB a week. o2 assigns these countries to World Zone 3; Roaming Plus World costs €14.99 a month, and according to o2’s product page it currently comes with 4 GB as a promotion instead of the usual 2 GB.

Against Vodafone’s 2 GB for €4.99 a month stands POVNOMAD’s 3 GB over 15 days for €4.90 in Serbia or Montenegro. The real difference isn’t so much the price as the commitment: you book the eSIM for the trip, WorldTravel for a year.

The Kosovo Gap

If you’re looking at a Balkan package, there’s one thing to check before you buy: whether Kosovo is included. Usually, it isn’t.

Retrieved September 5, 2026. Airalo’s Eurolink coverage checked via Airalo’s product listings and esimdb.com; Airalo doesn’t publish an official Eurolink country list. Holafly coverage per esim.holafly.com/esim-balkans and the German-language Europe page.

The reason is technical, not political. Kosovo has no official ISO 3166 country code. The commonly used abbreviation “XK” is a so-called user-assigned code, used in practice by the European Commission, the IMF and SWIFT, but never issued by ISO — and under the maintenance agency’s rules, a code starting with X can never become an official country code. Catalogs, booking and billing systems built on ISO country codes simply have no field for Kosovo.

It has nothing to do with roaming. Kosovo has had its own country code, +383, since December 2016, implemented on the network since January 15, 2019, along with its own mobile country code, MCC 221, with Vala as 221-01 and IPKO as 221-02. And Kosovo is a full member of the Western Balkans roaming agreement and explicitly named in the EU negotiating mandate from June 4, 2026. Leaving Kosovo out isn’t because roaming there is somehow impossible.

One legacy is still visible today: before Kosovo had its own dialing code, its networks ran through foreign codes — Vala via Monaco and IPKO via Slovenia. Holafly still lists Kosovo’s network as “IPKO Telecommunications / Monaco Telecom.”

To be fair: POVNOMAD’s own regional packages for Europe don’t cover Kosovo either. The reason is the same. For Kosovo, you’ll need a separate country profile with every provider.

They do exist. POVNOMAD offers a dedicated Kosovo eSIM with five packages: 1 GB over seven days for €6.90, 3 GB over 15 days for €15.90, 5 GB over 30 days for €24.90, 10 GB for €41.90 and 20 GB over 30 days for €80.90. Airalo has a Kosovo eSIM under the name Plisi, from €4.50 for 1 GB over three days up to €43.50 for 20 GB over 30 days, though without an unlimited option. Holafly lists Kosovo individually from $20.90 for three days; its German site, though, showed “This destination is currently unavailable” when we checked on September 5, 2026.

A word on price, because otherwise the comparison looks skewed: Kosovo is significantly more expensive at wholesale than its neighbors. That’s why 1 GB there costs €6.90 instead of €2.90 as in Albania or Serbia. If you need a lot of data and are optimizing for price per gigabyte, Airalo’s 20 GB package at €43.50 in Kosovo beats our €80.90. If you need little, or you’re visiting several Balkan countries anyway, the small package suits you fine.

The rule for buying stays the same: read the country list before booking a regional package. Kosovo is almost never included, and its name is often missing from search filters too.

Which Network in Which Country

One point that gets lost in price comparisons matters more on the ground than price: Bosnia and Herzegovina has no commercial 5G. Regulator RAK still hasn’t issued any licenses; according to the head of BH Telecom, that’s not expected before the end of 2026. If you see a 5G promise there, ignore it — nobody can deliver on it.

In Serbia, by contrast, 5G has been live at all three operators simultaneously since December 3, 2025, following an auction in November 2025. North Macedonia is furthest along: Makedonski Telekom reports 97% population coverage. In Montenegro, 5G runs commercially with a requirement to reach half the population by the end of 2026. In Albania, 5G is largely limited to Tirana and parts of Durrës.

For the mountains, something other than 5G matters. In the Albanian Alps around Theth and Valbona, Vodafone Albania is considered noticeably more reliable than its competitors. In Georgia, Magti is often the only network with signal in Svaneti, Kazbegi and toward Tusheti; Tusheti is essentially offline. Download maps before you head into the mountains — no provider promises that.

Registration: The Underrated Advantage

North Macedonia legally requires SIM card registration; Montenegro, Albania, Serbia and Georgia require your passport at purchase. For a local prepaid SIM, that means finding a store, showing ID, and filling out a form — often simply not possible on a Sunday or after landing at 11 p.m.

An eSIM sidesteps this step entirely. You install it at home before departure, and it activates the first time your device connects. None of the seven countries require IMEI registration like Turkey does, by the way — that’s the difference worth knowing on a Balkan road trip with a Turkey side trip.

What POVNOMAD Offers

Prices as of September 5, 2026. Network details are examples; the partner networks actually used are shown after purchase in the eSIM link under “Networks” and can change at short notice. Unlimited Smart means 1 GB of high-speed data per 24 hours, Unlimited L 2 GB, Unlimited XL 3 GB — after that the connection continues uninterrupted at 1 Mbit/s, with the allowance resetting every 24 hours.

For Kosovo, there are five data-allowance packages: 1 GB over seven days for €6.90, 3 GB over 15 days for €15.90, 5 GB over 30 days for €24.90, 10 GB for €41.90 and 20 GB for €80.90. Kosovo is significantly more expensive at wholesale than its neighbors — which is why its entry price is €6.90 instead of €2.90.

For Albania, there’s currently no unlimited package, only data-allowance plans from 1 GB over seven days for €2.90 up to 20 GB over 30 days for €20.90. If you need a lot of data in Albania, compare these 20 GB against Airalo’s Unlimited at €87.00 for 30 days and work out your own usage.

What “Unlimited” Actually Means, Provider by Provider

Airalo states its cap: 3 GB per day at full speed, then unlimited at 1 Mbit/s, resetting every 24 hours. That’s not stated on the product pages, though, but on a general fair-use page.

Holafly doesn’t state its cap. Its terms don’t give a number, only that network operators may impose restrictions if usage is “excessive”; the product pages say a restriction will be applied for at most one day. Figures of two to three gigabytes a day circulating online come from third-party reviews, not from Holafly.

POVNOMAD states both figures directly on the plan: the daily high-speed allowance and the speed afterward. Of the three providers, none sells unlimited data without throttling.

Frequently Asked Questions